Hors d’oeuvre

Mama arrived in Tampa from Abu Dhabi and got settled in before Tropical Storm Isaac rounded the corner through the Keys. I got out in the street and kept giving the NFL out of bounds signal and pushed him farther West. Sorry New Orleans! We and the Republican Convention in Tampa received very little discomfort. I’ve seen bigger blows on a good day and TS Debby deposited a lot more precipitation.

The daughter is doing fine after her surgery in Dubai, which is an hour from Abu Dhabi. She is now back in school teaching the young Emerati boys how to count their oil dollars instead of dirhams, one dirham = 27 cents.

Entree

Halleluiah, a new miniature version of ‘Young Alvin Alligator’ has emerged from our lake and can be seen shade bathing on our property in late afternoon on some days; all     1 ½ – 2 feet of ‘IT’. “From whence ‘It’ came, no one knows”. Please keep that on your mind. I have formally registered the newcomer baby ‘Alex Alligator’. Alex, being a generic nickname for either Alexandra or Alexander, as it got me off the hook for not being able to visually sex alligators. I know you get it, don’t you? Huh? When Baby Alex arrived, I thought I had misnamed Alvina, Alvin, so I decided to do a literature review, a scientific term for library study, to settle my inner dispute once and for all.

I’m warning you, there is more to this story, so buckle up!

May I digress please? Thank you!

‘Larry the Cable Guy’ hosted a reality show on the History Channel the last couple of seasons called ‘Only in America’, I think it was. In one or two episodes he hooked up with some swamp people somewhere and they taught him many things about gators, including how to sex one. You must realize that both male and female sex organs are internal so the technique involves turning the gator over on his/her back, locating the vent, which is a slit in the lower abdomen and inserting a couple of fingers, gloved or ungloved is your choice. If no obstruction is felt it is a female and if entry is obstructed it is a male. How ‘bout them apples? If you would like to give it a go, come on down; I’ll get my dog leash and collar out and harness up Baby Alex for a scientific experiment.

May I digress a little further, please? Thank you!

You may enjoy knowing that alligators mate in April and May, about 45 eggs are laid in a nest built by the female in June and July and the hatchlings emerge in August and September.  Males do not help out either before or after hatching. The baby gators are a whopping 6-8 inches long at birth and grow a foot a year.  Mothers care for their young until about age two, when she encourages them to vacate the house or gives them the boot. Not the Tony Lama kind of boot, needless to say. Both males and females become mature at 6 feet /6 years. You may recall that Young Alvin’s length was an estimated 4 feet or 4 years of age.

The nests are built in shallow marshy areas and are quite large, 6-8 feet long and 3 feet high. The things are made from mud, sticks and any suitable plant materials the female can find. After she lays the eggs she covers them up with more vegetative material and they start to incubate with the warmth from the sun and decaying organic matter.

I’m sorry but I must digress further or you will be left dangling and that will not be good. Thank you!

An alligator’s sex is not determined by genes, rather by temperature; ditto for crocs and turtles. Researchers have found that only females are hatched if the incubating egg temperature is 85°F or less, only males at 92° and above, and about equal numbers of boys and girls between 85° and 92°. Whew, I got that off my chest.

May I regress now, please? Thank you!

All the edges of our lake are sharp drop offs, mown grass growing right to the rim and water laps right up to the edge. There are no beaches, marshy areas or any suitable places to build a nest and further more, there are no constructed mounds in our lake. Right now is the time an egg laid this year would hatch. Remember, Baby Alex is a couple of feet long and ‘It’ just showed up. The eagle eyes of the wife and our friends, Pat and Bill, who know our lake better than I, would have spotted ‘It’ before now, other wise.

From whence ‘It’ came, no one knows”. I told you to keep it on your mind.

All of the information provided above substantiates my conclusions below:

1). Alvin is not Alex’s mother.

2). Alvin is not Alex’s father.

3). Alex was not hatched in our lake.

4). Alex was not hatched this year.

5). Alvin was not hatched in our lake.

6). Alvin could be Alvina but I am sticking to my storyline.

By the way, alligators have a variety of predators that enjoy feasting on eggs and young hatchlings. The number one dreaded and dreadful pest is the egg sucking masked bandito, Ramon Raccoon. Nearly 50% of nests and eggs are destroyed by Ramon and his clan. The wife and I used chicken eggs, in California, to lure koi eating coons into our traps. The county trapper from the Agricultural Commissioner’s office would pick up trapped coons, transport them to the county dog pound and euthanize them. Yeah!!! But that’s just me. In addition, snakes, otters, osprey, other alligators and hateful humans can be predators. Only 10% of a hatchling class will attend its first birthday party.

May I digress, please? Thank you!

My friend Ted speculated over his fried egg sandwich last Thursday at ‘The Broken Egg’ in Lakewood Ranch, FL, that Alex was hatched in a secluded marshy area nearby. There are wooded areas within the neighborhood that are unsuitable for houses and undeveloped. They most likely do contain areas suitable for alligator reproduction. Ted also theorized that Baby Alex was either given the boot and walked on ‘Its’ own to our lake or ‘Mama Alligator’ carried the kid on her back to our lake. Mama liked what she saw, kissed Baby Alex good bye and returned to ‘whence she came’!

So there, you now know “from whence ‘It’ came” and the rest of the story.

Undoubtedly I will get a call from Tony in El Paso since no product to tan or product to make was created by this opus!

Dessert

The pastry chef’s ingredient order did not come today. It is Labor Day, a holiday!